Zoids: Grudge Match.

Okay, I've been plagued with writers block and allsorts of other stuff for the last few months, plus I've been on a zoids RPG site the name of which will be found in my profile.The old stories really lost what little spark they had, and so I've now started anew with this. I must apologise to any purists who read this, because there will be a variety of my self-designed custom zoids, but, anyway, here goes:

Chapter One: Aftermath

Harry Champ was at home, still recovering from the concussion he'd received during the final events of the royal cup two weeks before, mostly because he refused to let Benjamin and Sebastian, his mechanoid servants, either phone for a doctor or use what medical knowledge they already had on him. Instead, he spent every waking moment fixated on his rivalry, his bitter enmity, with Bit Cloud, now the newest elite pilot to enter class S of the Zoid Battle Commission's zoid leagues.

At this stage, Harry would do almost anything to defeat Bit, to prove himself superior to that cocky, stuck up, lucky jerk of a Liger Pilot… almost anything.

Meanwhile, at the Toros base, the Blitz team were relaxing, Bit happy now that his debts for the Schneider, Panzer and Jager armours were paid; Brad chilling out after a session fine tuning the Shadow Fox so that the two were better synchronised, and Leena expecting a missile shipment at any moment. Jamie, however, was in the hangar, still working on his most urgent project, fitting the wings back onto his Raynos where they had been removed by the Buster Claws of the Berserk Fuhrer two weeks before. He'd already removed most of the dents from the rest of the Raynos, but the refitting of the wings would be far trickier than routine maintenance…

Meanwhile, huddled in a concealed military bunker in the middle of the desert, the remaining leadership of the Backdraft group met- their voices lowered- trying to formulate a new plan for success…

Of the original committee of seven, only three remained, the rest having been arrested or killed in recent raids on both Backdraft facilities and their own properties. But, ever pragmatic, the remaining committee members had appointed replacements for their fallen and captured comrades, and they- along with the most experienced pilots remaining to the Backdraft, discussed their options.

Indeed, the only men not present who might sway the progress of this discussion were Doctor Layon, who currently lay, verging on the comatose, in a hospital bed- and Vega Obscura, who now sat in his room, despondent over the turn for the worse that the Berserk Fuhrer had taken three days before.

"Yes, yes," said, Marcus Halburg, one of the new committee members, "of course I agree with our aim to harness the power of an Ultimate X, but can we truly harness the power of the Berserk Fuhrer? The zoid is a loose cannon!"

"I see what you mean," replied the count, whose charmed existence had allowed him to remain safe during the past fortnight, "But what other choices do we have?"

This time, Jared Falke, head of development operations replied, "What we could do is to try and disassemble the integrated organoid system of the Berserk Fuhrer, with a view to reverse engineering it, creating our own copies to install into those zoids we considered worthy of receiving the system…"

"An interesting possibility," mused commander Alteil, finally elevated to committee member status during the past two weeks to replace a dead member, "I move that we lay all possibilities on the table, then adjourn to consider them before reaching a decision… Hasty decisions at this point would be… unwise."

A quick show of hands demonstrated that everyone present agreed with his suggestion, and thus even the most farfetched possibilities were submitted for consideration before the meeting broke up…

Naomi and Leon were arguing, all pretence of repairing their zoids forgotten as they discussed the future of the Flugel team.

"I like the idea as much as you do," Leon insisted, "but with all the new zoid designs coming out, and the new pilots coming up to class A, our only chance of survival is going to be recruiting a third full-time member… preferably someone who could handle an area of combat where our zoids fall short."

Naomi replied bitterly, "freelance pilots are gonna be very hard to find right about now, everyone's forming teams to register for next year's championships… and there are dozens of teams recruiting replacement members after the carnage of the Royal Cup… Whether we want a third member or not, we're gonna have a hard time finding one. Especially if we want someone competent."

"Yes, but Naomi," Leon replied, sapped of strength and confidence by the events of the past fortnight, "we lost a battle against a single Stormsworder…"

"But how are we going to manage the upkeep of a third zoid, in addition to ours?" Naomi snapped back, "I'm having enough trouble meeting the repayments for my Gunsniper without having to pay wages for a third pilot, and those spare parts for your Blade Liger aren't cheap…"

"We'll manage something," Leon insisted half-heartedly, already giving up the argument because, no matter how badly they needed a third zoid on the team, he couldn't argue with the state of their finances.

Jack Sisco was busy trying to repair the damage done to his Lightning Saix. This wasn't the damage done during the Royal cup by the Blitz team, but rather the damage received during a more recent battle, where the Lightning team had lost against a single Stormsworder, finding themselves unable to shake the flying zoid, and unable to target it as it cleaved their zoids in two from behind. So now they were frantically trying to repair their zoids, all the while hoping that their finances wouldn't run out before they were finished.

Only Chris Tasker wasn't repairing her zoid, and that was because it had managed to Freeze ten seconds into the battle, without taking a single hit. Instead, she was looking through a magazine, reading an article from the recent zoid-manufacturers roadshow in Romeo city.

"Nope," she muttered to herself, "no new upgrades for the Lightning Saix. Hey, hang on a minute…" She raised her voice, calling to the others, "come and take a look at this guys!"

Within a couple of moments, they were clustered around the magazine she clutched, looking at photographs and technical readouts for two new zoids, the Dire Saix, and the Imperator Saix. These zoids were specialist upgrades of the Lightning Saix, and each bristled with more weapons and armour than could be safely fitted to their forerunner, all the while having greater speed and greater manoeuvrability.

"Those," Jack Sisco said, breaking the uneasy silence, "could be our next step."

Like the others, he was drinking in the thought of lightweight alloy armour, upgraded boosters featuring the new Screaming Harpy Ramjet system, and a vast variety of weapons that would make these zoids high-speed fortresses, able to annihilate almost anything that could hope to keep pace with them.

"When we have the money to spare then," Kelly Tasker spoke for all of them, "we shall upgrade our zoids."